


hard times (or, when it's alright.)

by winterwinterwinter



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:42:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterwinterwinter/pseuds/winterwinterwinter
Summary: grady's work-life balance is a little uneven. maybe a career change would help with that. or maybe he can just eat some pie about it. or: a story about a man trying his best.
Relationships: Mr. Numbers/Mr. Wrench (Fargo)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 14





	1. chapter one.

**Author's Note:**

> i promised myself i wouldn't work on anything chaptered until i finished bad idea, but the lie detector test determined that was a lie.

the drive home from fargo was a long one, but grady knew it like the back of his hand. he idled at a stop sign in the dark, lighting a cigarette. he’d mostly quit, but one of his few remaining vices after a few hard years of fighting them was a solitary cigarette on the way home from work. the first inhale felt like heaven. he felt his shoulders droop, tension escaping him. he sat smoking there at the stop sign, the wind whistling around the car. after his second puff he cracked the window and sat forward, continuing on his way.

it took another forty minutes before he was pulling into his parking spot in front of his apartment complex. his cigarette was long finished. as he turned the car off he considered a second, but decided against it. one on the way home, that was all.

as soon as he stepped out of the car grady realized how tired he was. he glanced at his duffel bag in the back seat and turned away - he’d get it in the morning. he stuffed his keys in his pocket and made his way up the walk and down the steps and into his building.

his eyes were dangerously droopy by the time he made it to the second floor, his floor. he stood at the top of the hallway and yawned, rubbing his eyes. he had one last stop before home, the door to the left, apartment five. he braced one hand against the wall and knocked very gently with the other. he stood waiting for maybe two minutes before the door opened, and there was miss daisy. “right on time,” she whispered, waving her cell phone in her hand.

“i try,” grady said.

“come on in,” miss daisy said, stepping aside.

grady shuffled into her apartment, immediately making a beeline for the spare room. there, curled up on miss daisy’s little daybed was his little girl, curled up tight in her fuzzy purple nightgown, her stuffed rabbit against her chest. grady stared down at her, watched her chest rise and fall. he felt himself melt a little. he always did, he couldn’t help it. she was just so fucking perfect.

miss daisy touched his shoulder, and he turned to her. she handed him lee’s heavy overnight bag. he shouldered it, and then he strode forward, bending to scoop his daughter into his arms. she let out a little groan, and squeezed her rabbit, and she mumbled “daddy?”

“i’m here, kid,” he said. she let out a noise and snuggled into his chest.

“thanks, daisy,” he whispered on the way out.

“she’s such a peach,” daisy said. “always my pleasure, son.”

grady carried lee across the hall to their apartment - number six. he unlocked the door, turned on the hall light. he wandered through the apartment, nudging open lee’s bedroom door. he set her bag on the floor.

“daddy…” she mumbled against his shoulder.

“kid?” he said.

“sleep in your bed?”

“of course,” grady said. “of course.”

grady motored out of her room and across the living room to his. he set her down on his unmade bed and watched her burrow under his blanket and comforter. “missed you,” she mumbled.

grady stroked her hair. “missed you too,” he said.

by the time grady had used the bathroom and put on his pajamas it was nearly four in the morning. he slid under the blankets beside his daughter and counted his blessings that it was sunday and he wouldn’t have to wake up and take her to school.

lee mumbled as grady settled in beside her. “hush,” grady said, putting an arm around her and her bunny. “dad’s here.” she hummed.

grady laid awake for longer than he hoped. he watched his daughter sleep, light seeping in from the streetlamp outside his bedroom window. not for the first time in his life he felt a deep contentment as he laid there beside her. _the only perfect thing in the world,_ he thought. he wanted to squeeze her tight, wanted to gather her up in his arms, but he didn’t want to wake her again. instead he pressed the softest kiss he could manage to the top of her head.

  
  


grady woke up to his daughter bouncing against the bed.

he opened his eyes and saw lee settling next to him, the pillow she’d slept on propped up against the headboard. she had a book in her hand and her rabbit under her arm.

“whatcha doin’?” grady said.

“waiting for you to wake up,” lee said. she set the book aside and put either hand on his cheeks, squishing his face. “so tired, daddy.”

“daddy works hard,” grady said. “long drive home.”

lee fiddled with her rabbit’s ears. “missed you,” she said again. she probably didn’t remember saying it that first time, she was so sleepy.

“missed you too, kid,” grady said. “come here.” and he opened his arms. lee dove into his chest, her rabbit squished between them.

“what do you wanna do today, rat kid?” grady said after a moment, staring at his window. he played with her hair, twisting it around his fingers, tugging at it.

“can we go to the diner?” she said, pulling back and propping herself up on his chest with her elbows.

“mm,  _ that’s  _ what you want,” he said, tapping at her nose with a finger.

“we go every time!”

“i know! i know. i promise, we’ll go,” grady said, unable to contain the grin that unravelled across his face. jesus, she really made his whole world turn. she stuck her tongue out at him. “hey, none of that. you do your homework at miss daisy’s?”

“yes!”

“easy?”

“fish in a barrel, daddy.”

“ugh, that’s my genius kid. get back here.”

they cuddled awhile. grady nearly fell asleep again, but eventually lee pounded her fist against his chest and asked to start their day. grady obliged. he helped her start the shower and get it to a comfortable temperature, then he set to making them some sort of lunch. he stood at the fridge for longer than he’d like to admit, staring down his options. by the time he heard lee’s little wet feet trotting around and she appeared before him, her hair wet, body swaddled in her little pink robe with the cat embroidered on the back, he’d just managed to make scrambled eggs.

“gotta go grocery shopping, kid,” he said, pushing the eggs around the pan.

“today?”

“mm, no. tomorrow, maybe. daddy just wants to relax.”

there was just a bit of bread left, so he made her toast. and there was one apple left, so he sliced it up and gave that to her, too. they sat at their little kitchen table together and ate, lee sipping at orange juice, grady doing the same with his coffee.

“now i need to shower,” grady mumbled

“what’re we gonna do today?” lee said. she’d just finished her last apple slice.

“well, i dunno. what do you wanna do?”

“just wanna go to the diner.”

“well, yeah. i know. that’s not until after dinner.”

“i  _ know _ !”

“whoa, attitude. where’s that coming from? you’re about seven years too early for that kind of shit, kid,” he said. lee giggled. “oh, there it is. you’re just being a little devil.”

“can we go to the library, daddy?” lee said.

“book due?”

“yeah,” lee said. “we went last week, remember?”

“alright. library it is. let daddy take a shower.”

once in the bathroom, grady stared at himself for far too long. he scrutinized himself, his eyes and his cheeks and his mouth. he just looked so  _ tired.  _ did everyone his age look this tired all the time?  he always looked so fucking tired anymore, and he knew it was the goddamn job taking its toll on him. he scrubbed at his face with his hands, as if he could wipe the dark spots below his eyes away. he scratched at his chin. he needed a trim.

he showered and dried and dressed, casual in a t-shirt and jeans and a jacket, because it was starting to get cold out.

“ready?” he hollered as he left his bedroom.

“ready!” lee said as she stepped out of her own bedroom wearing a little sweater under a denim jumper. 

“who the hell made you this cute, kid?” grady said. “honestly. drives me crazy. you brush your hair?”

lee shook her head.

“want me to do it?”

she nodded.

grady brushed her hair and tied it back with a little black ribbon, and lee grabbed her library book and they put on their shoes and grady grabbed the keys and they left the apartment.

“should we drive or should we walk?”

“walk.”

“alright.”

one of grady’s favorite things was to feel lee’s hand in his. her hand was so tiny, and to feel her holding onto him made his heart soar every time. he never tired of the trust that she had in him. he knew that it was partly because her world revolved around him as her guardian, but still it got to him. sometimes he wasn't sure he deserved it.  


it wasn’t a long walk from their apartment complex into town. the library was down a side street off the main drag. grady allowed himself to let go of lee’s hand as it came into view. she skipped ahead of him, spinning on the sidewalk, full of energy and life. grady smiled as he watched her bound up the steps. he remembered himself in the bathroom, all dark circles on a long face. “daddy,” she called.

“you’re too fast for me,” he said.

lee stood waiting at the door as grady purposely dragged his feet up the last stretch of sidewalk and the library steps.

grady sat in a cushioned chair with some magazine open on his lap while lee trotted up and down the short, colorful bookcases that housed the children’s collection. he spent most of his time sat there watching her dark, bushy hair bouncing along the stacks as she browsed. he rubbed at the glossy magazine page, worrying the paper between two fingers.

the job had gone well. it was a long one - a week in south dakota, a week away from his girl. a pair of their distributors had been skimming a little off the top for a few months. tripoli finally asked numbers to go in, rough them up, take matters into his own hands if they didn’t cough up what they stole. one of them, a guy named gagne, went down with a shot to his throat. he choked on his own blood - if grady closed his eyes he could still hear the mad gurgling noise he’d made. the other one, krueger, was easy to convince after that.

lee poked her head out from around one of the bookcases. “daddy,” she whispered.

grady got up, setting the magazine down on the little coffee table there. “what’d you find?” he said.

she emerged from behind the bookcase, handing him a little paperback book with a vibrant cover depicting a child and a lion in a jungle. he thumbed through it.

“chapter book,” he said.

“miss hummel says i should read more chapter books,” lee said.

“‘cause you’re a fuckin’ genius, sweetheart,” he said, patting her head with the book. “this what you want?”

lee nodded.

the librarian, a stout woman who wore glasses with lenses as thick as grady’s arm, smiled at lee as she checked out.

“my grandson loves this one,” she whispered almost conspiratorially to lee. lee glanced up at grady, smiling.

“thanks,” grady said as the librarian handed the book over to lee.

“thank you,” lee said.

they walked home hand-in-hand. halfway there, lee started jumping over the cracks in the sidewalk. grady joined her. they must’ve looked a sight, a grown man hopping down the sidewalk alongside his daughter on their walk home.

*****

“how was dinner?”

they were in the car, making the short drive from their apartment complex to their favorite spot, the little pie diner right beside the exit grady used every time he drove home from fargo. lee was buckled in the backseat, hands folded in her lap.

“we ate the same thing, dad,” she said.

“well,  _ excuse  _ me for trying to make conversation.”

“you’re excused!”

“fuck,” grady said, grinning at the road ahead, “who raised you.”

“you!”

they pulled into the diner’s parking lot, the little lighted sign out front that read  _ theresa’s  _ greeting them. it wasn’t busy - there were only two other cars in the lot besides the ones grady knew belonged to the staff. grady got out of the car and turned to help lee, but she was out of the car before he’d even closed his door.

“eager?” he said.

“yes!” she said. “it’s been forever.”

“a week.”

“forever!”

grady didn’t hold her hand into the diner. she walked right up to the hostess, an older woman named peggy with hair whose vibrant color didn't match the lines on her face. “hello there!” she said, addressing lee. lee took a step back. “been a while since we seen you.”

the diner had two employees that grady knew of, and both of them were familiar with the two of them. they’d been coming in almost weekly since lee was four, after all. grady watched the young waitress, nikki, duck into the kitchen.

“make yourselves comfortable,” peggy said.

they took their usual spot, the cushioned corner booth with the circular table that was intended for a party of more than two. it was lee’s favorite simply because it was so big.

nikki returned from the kitchen, brandishing two dessert menus. “here you go,” she said, handing them over and winking down at lee. “how’s school?”

“good,” lee said, suddenly shy. she flipped through her menu.

“special today is lemon meringue,” nikki said. “almost gone.”

“i’ll just have some of that,” grady said, handing the menu back. “kid?”

lee looked up at him sheepishly. “strawberry rhubarb,” she whispered to him, holding her menu out for nikki to take.

“and some strawberry rhubarb,” grady said, even though the diner was quiet enough that nikki definitely heard her. “some water, too.”

“alrighty,” she said. she turned, and made a beeline for the kitchen, bypassing the pie display completely.

“you even know what rhubarb is?” grady said.

“you said trying new things was good,” lee said.

“fair point, kid.”

the kitchen door swung open. out came the owner, a tall, handsome man whose name grady knew was wes. he was wearing an apron streaked with dark smudges and flour. in each hand he had a generous slice of pie, one lemon meringue, the other strawberry rhubarb. grady watched as he approached, eyes not wavering until he was setting the pieces of pie down on their table with a heavy clatter.

“thanks,” grady said, accompanying himself with an awkward gesture, pressing his fingertips to his chin and pulling them outward.

wes did the same, like he was demonstrating, his movements so fluid it was like ballet or something. his gaze was intense. grady tried again, tried to mimic his fluidity.  


“um, so…,” grady began to say. lee was already eating her dessert, her fork clattering against the plate. wes grabbed a notebook from his apron and a pen from where it sat behind his ear, and he waved them in both hands. “please?” grady rubbed his fist against his chest.

wes handed over the notebook and pen. grady took it and wrote  _ thanks _ ,  _ are you the one that makes the pies? _ wes took the notebook back and read and looked at grady and nodded. grady waved the notebook back.  _ they’re amazing _ , he wrote.

at this, wes smiled. he grabbed the notebook. _my mom’s recipes,_ it said when grady saw it.

_she loves them,_ grady said, pointing over at lee when wes read his message. lee kept her eyes on her plate - adults always made her shy. her pie was half eaten, red streaks all over the heavy white plate. wes slid into the booth beside her. grady saw her tense. it was then that nikki sidled up to their table, a glass of water in either hand.

“my fault,” she said, setting them down. “forgot.” and she rolled her eyes at herself.  


wes waved a hand at lee, who peered up at him from under her eyelashes. he made a series of gestures. lee straightened up as she watched him, mesmerized. new things always caught her attention, and she’d never seen a deaf person communicate before. not that grady was so full of experience or knowledge - he’d only seen it on _sesame street_ as a kid.

“daddy, what’s this?” she said.

“sign language,” nikki said. “he’s asking if you like the pie. do ya?”

lee nodded.

“do this,” nikki said, knocking her closed fist against the air. lee imitated her, and wes smiled up at grady, and grady almost forgot to breathe.

wes moved on. grady recognized a sign from his last statement, which he thought must be _pie._ he used one hand like a knife, cutting a triangle against against his other hand held flat.

“what’s your favorite pie?” nikki said.

“coconut,” lee said, her voice small.

“coconut!” nikki said, looking at grady. “this little lady has taste. girl after my own heart. here.” and she demonstrated  _ coconut _ by holding an imaginary one beside her head and shaking it twice. lee followed her example.

grady and lee and nikki watched wes as he signed, grady catching  _ coconut _ and  _ pie _ again. he finished, and nikki smacked his shoulder. she signed something at him and he rolled his eyes at her.

nikki knelt down to meet lee’s eyes, her chin level with the tabletop. “he said he’ll make you a whole coconut cream pie next time you come in,” she said. “ya have to share it with me, though.”

“okay,” lee said, hazarding a smile at her.

wes had nikki put an extra slice of each pie in a little takeout box for them. he didn’t let her let them leave without it. “says it's on the house,” nikki said when grady tried to refuse it, tried to ask the price. “insists.” peggy eyed the box as grady paid, lee leaning against his leg, full and lazy and tired.

peggy leaned in close over the register. “you really make his day,” she said. “both of you.”

grady didn’t know what to do with that. “she loves his, uh, work,” he said, feeling awkward. “have a good - good night.”

it wasn’t a long drive, but lee dozed off anyway. grady almost picked her up and carried her, but she woke up when he opened her door. “tired?” he said.

“tired,” she said.

“i know a good fix for that,” he said. “sleep.”

“no shit,” she mumbled.

“yeah, no shit.”

she stood there on the asphalt and spread her arms out. her eyes were so droopy and dark - it was like looking into the past and seeing himself at her age. “okay,” he said, leaning and sweeping her off her feet. he shifted her in his arms and switched the takeout box from hand to hand. “c’mere, rat.”

“i missed you daddy,” she mumbled into his shoulder, and grady’s heart broke the way it always did when she said that. he had to get out. he had to get out of the hell that he lived in, had to get away from the devil he’d sold his soul to when his soul was all he had left, besides lee. he ached, but he was pissed more than anything. he stroked her hair once as he mounted the stairs.

“i missed you too,” he said.

*****

grady got three days - three unseasonably warm, perfect days - with lee before he got a call from carlyle’s secretary, asking him to come in and pick up his next assignment. it was thursday morning he got the call. he drove out to fargo while lee was in school and picked up the folder with his assignment and all the intel they had on whoever it was they wanted him to cut open. he picked her up from school, felt his heart sink as she happily chittered away at him, oblivious.

he made her favorite dinner. macaroni and cheese, made from scratch, none of that radioactive boxed shit that he used to eat when he was sixteen. he tried with her. he really did. he tried as hard as he could, and then he tried harder. even when he felt as if he failed her, she would turn to him, oblivious, and ask to play or ask for a hug or ask for a story, and her ignorance and the depth of her love would almost knock him off his feet.

“lee,” he called. she came out of her room, looking sheepish. he didn’t blame her. it wasn’t like him to address her by name like that. usually it was _kid_ or _rat_ or something else, one of the other nicknames he’d given her. “dinner. y’want juice or something?”

“no…” she said as she climbed into her chair. “water.”

he got her a glass. he made her plate and then his own. he’d prefer not to eat at all - he felt sick, sick to his stomach - but he took all his meals with her, and under her eye he tried to be good, tried to set an example. they ate, lee regaling him with stories from her day, showing off the things she’d learned.

“kid,” grady said, “i gotta say.”

“yeah, dad?”

grady sighed. he didn’t want to do it. “daddy has some work coming up again,” he said. he wanted to stare at his plate, like he was the child admitting fault to an adult, but he couldn’t. he looked at her, watched her face crumble. “daddy has to leave again tomorrow.”

“you just got here!” she said.

“i know, i know - ”

“that’s not fair!” she said, her voice thick. grady watched her big dark eyes fill with tears. “that’s not fucking fair!” and she kicked out of her chair and ran back into her room, and grady sat there at their little kitchen table, feeling cut up, feeling empty. feeling really fucking angry. to be a child and to believe that the world believed in fairness.

he cleaned up the kitchen. he wanted to give her time by herself, even though as he listened to her sob all he wanted was to drop the dishes in the sink and hold her and promise her that he’d stay, that he wouldn’t leave, that he’d tell his boss to go fuck himself and that he’d be there to braid her hair in the morning. by the time he finished with the plates and the glasses and the silverware, by the time he’d wrapped up the leftovers and put them away, her sobs had quieted and all he could hear as he approached her room were little hiccups and whimpers.

“lee?” he said.

“daddy,” she said, her voice small. he walked around the side of her bed and found her, curled up on the floor between her bed and the wall.

he dropped to his knees and shuffled over to her.

“i’m sorry,” he said.

“if you were really suh-sorry,” she hiccuped, “you wouldn’t go.” she screwed up her face like she was trying to keep the tears in.

“kid,” he said, listening to his voice break, heaving a sigh, “kid, i gotta go. it’s my job.”

“i hate your stupid job!” she said.

“i do too,” he said. he blinked, and he felt the few tears that’d welled up fall down his cheeks. he opened his arms, reached for her. he saw the defiance on her face, the disappointment, but he knew that being upset was no match for a big hug from daddy and a kiss on the head. she scrambled over, crawling into his lap and tucking herself against his chest, burrowing into his hoodie. he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his cheek against the top of her head. “i’m gonna be back before you know it. i swear.”

“you better,” she mumbled.

“i will,” he said, “two days.” even though he hadn’t looked at the file yet, had no idea of the specifics, of the time, the place. regardless, he would make it happen. he wasn’t about to be a liar in the eyes of his daughter.

“if i’m not back in two days, you can punch me in my stupid face,” he said.

“not stupid,” she said.

“daddy’s stupid,” he said, “stupid for making you cry.”

“not stupid!” she barked, pulling away to glare up at him. jesus, it really was like looking in a mirror.

“not stupid,” he said.

lee ran off to take a shower and grady sat down with his file. he read through it, and thank fuck, it was a simple one. he could be done in  _ one  _ day, if he tried. just an assassination and a disposal.

lee wanted to sleep in his bed again, which didn’t surprise him. they put on their pajamas together, lee’s purple with little white polka dots, grady’s an old t-shirt and boxers. “your jammies are ugly,” she said, sat on the bed with her new library book.

“rude,” he said.

he laid down with her. she waved her book.

“i wanna read to you,” she said.

“alright,” he said, “let’s hear it.”

he laid on his back and she laid right under his arm so he could see the text and illustrations. she took a deep breath, and she began, her voice strong and level:

“one cold rainy day, when my father was a little boy - ”

“oh, it’s about me?”

“daddy! be quiet.”

*****

grady was able to drop lee off at school the next morning before he set off. they had a tearful goodbye and he promised her again that he would be home before long. he wished her well, told her to ace her vocabulary test.

“i will,” she sniffled.

“i know,” he said.

he left her overnight bag with miss daisy, and off he went.

the job was easy. in the end he only had to spend one night away. he drove all the way back to fargo, dropping off the money and the file folder, now with his report inside. he made it home by seven in the morning, and he took a nap and drank enough cups of coffee that he would at least  _ feel _ human when he picked lee up from school.

the look on her face when she saw him standing there against their car almost made it worth it.


	2. chapter two.

grady was just finishing his celebratory cigarette when he pulled into the parking lot of theresa’s at just past one in the morning. it was still lit up, and through the big, clean windows he could see wes moving what was either a broom or a mop to and fro, his back to the windows and door.

a little bell chimed overhead as grady walked in. _what’s the point,_ he thought, _when he’s here by himself?_ he stood there awkwardly a moment, unsure of what do to - whether it would be better to stand waiting or just go take a seat at the counter and hope he caught wes’s eye. wes turned around, though, and saw him standing there. wes took a hand off his implement and waved. grady waved back. wes grabbed the pen from behind his ear and the notebook, which was sat on the counter. he tucked the wooden handle of whatever-it-was under his arm and scribbled. grady drew closer until it was just the pink countertop between them.

 _we’re closed,_ wes’s note read.

grady felt a sharp pang of awkwardness, a sting of embarrassment - no shit the place was closed, it was one in the morning. wes was probably tired as fuck and ready to go home and grady just had to walk in like it was normal to walk into a pie diner at one in the fucking morning. he looked past the notebook, which wes had held up for him, and saw his companion’s face. he was smiling.

grady smiled back, a little uneasy. wes pulled back and scribbled something else down.

 _kidding!_ it said.

before long grady was sitting down at the counter. the only pie left from the day’s offerings was two slices of lime and blackberry pie topped with whipped cream. wes offered and grady accepted. he took a bite - _shit,_ that was tart. he must’ve done something with his face, made some stupid expression like he’d just sucked the sugar off of a sour gummy worm, because wes let out a little huff and grady looked up and saw him smiling, twirling his fork against his plate, already halfway done his own slice.

grady pulled the notebook toward himself and wrote.

_you said the pies were your mom’s recipe, did she work here too?_

_she owned it, it was my grandfather’s first, he named it after my grandma._

_have you lived here all your life?_

wes nodded.

_do you like it here?_

wes nodded again.

_we don’t get new people often. i noticed you right away._

grady took another bite of his pie, resisting the urge to twist his features around the tartness of the lime. _i like it here,_ he wrote, _good school. quiet._

_how’s your kid?_

_great. just got in from a business trip, excited to see her._

_she’s adorable._

_i know._ and grady grinned, because his daughter _was_ adorable, and he was excited to see her. she made life worth living, after all. _  
_

wes pointed at his bandaged knuckles suddenly, raising an eyebrow, like he was asking what happened. no, he was literally asking what happened. grady shook his head - _none of your concern, man,_ he thought. wes dropped his hand and looked doubtful that it wasn’t his business, for some reason. wes reached for the pen again, but grady waved his hand. “let me finish my pie, man,” he said, “please?” the wound was from the job, obviously. the mark heyerdahl’s partner had tried to fight him. tried. all the rat bastard, six feet under, now, had to show for his attempt was brown-stained bandage around grady's hand.

wes seemed to get the gist. he took his empty plate and went back to the kitchen. grady sat there finishing his. it was tart as all hell but it was delicious. smooth like silk, and the whipped cream was so light it was almost like he was eating nothing at all. every time he hit a blackberry the tartness of the lime was offset just enough. and the crust, fuck -

wes was returning from the kitchen as the bell on the door chimed. grady started to spin in his stool. “hey, sorry, place is closed,” he said as his eyes fell upon a chillingly familiar man with a hole in his shoulder, pointing a gun at the both of them.

“numbers,” he grunted, and grady drew his sidearm so fast he cracked his wrist, and he blinked and the man heyerdahl was already on the linoleum, bleeding. fuck.

grady whipped around, the hand around his gun shaking just a bit. wes stood there behind the counter, his eyes wide. he almost looked pissed, his brows knitted, but grady could tell he was scared from how fast his breath was coming. grady set his gun down. he waved his hand. “hey!” he said when wes looked at him.

grady grabbed the notebook and wrote quick, scribbling fast and hard - _if i can’t trust you then you’ll be on the floor next to him._ he slid the notebook over to wes and watched him read it. he felt poorly saying that to him but he had to. that was the world grady lived in. if he had to kill wes he would. he would kill anyone to keep himself and lee safe.

wes slid the notebook back across the counter. _i trust you,_ it said. grady looked up at him and wes nodded like he wanted to clarify.

_i’m gonna call cops, this is self defense, youre my witness, it was a robbery._

_cops know me. it’s gonna be fine._

it’s gonna be fine. the words hit grady like a slap in the face, for some reason. he looked up at wes, who nodded again. he reached forward and tapped at it for emphasis - _it’s gonna be fine._ wes had moved on from his bewildered expression, instead looking determined, unmoveable. and grady realized very quickly why he was so struck by those words. it’d been a long time since he’d felt as if he had someone in his corner. miss daisy was a godsend, but she wasn’t a friend. wes probably wasn’t even a friend, he barely knew the guy, but the way he was looking at grady was almost too much to bear.

grady nodded.

the cops were fast. small town, slow night, not much to do. there was two of them, a tall skinny young guy whose nametag said stahl and a tall fat old fellow whose nametag said hoffstetler. the young guy threw up when he saw the body. the old fellow didn’t look much better.

“i was having some pie,” grady said. his piece was till mostly-eaten, sitting on the counter. “and this guy came in, you know, wanting money. and you know, wes can’t hear, and he was threatening him, and he had the gun, and i carry...”

grady had been blessed with a silver tongue, and the pair of them believed him easy enough. or maybe it was that they were from a small town where things like this didn’t happen, and they were willing to just put it to rest. forget the ugliness. they called the coroner and the asshole was zipped up and carted away, and after two hours wes was left with a pool of blood on his linoleum.

 _i can help,_ grady wrote in the notebook.

wes shook his head. it was almost four in the morning. _go home to your kid,_ he wrote. and he added _will she be alright?_

grady looked at him. he looked at the puddle of blood on the floor. he looked at wes again and he nodded. his hand rested on the counter, and wes reached over and set his own hand on grady’s. and they held each other’s eyes, and wes nodded too.

*****

grady woke up later that day in his bed. when he got home, he’d put lee in her own bed - she hadn’t woken up at all when he carried her from miss daisy’s daybed across the hall to their apartment - but as he blinked sleep out of his eyes he looked over and saw her there, a little bundle of purple beside him.

it was ten. he got out of bed and lee didn’t stir. he grabbed the quilt he kept on the trunk beneath the window and spread it over her. he went to his bathroom then and locked the door and took off his clothes, kicking them into the corner by the hamper.

grady looked at himself. there was a bruise forming around his hip, definitely from when he hit the ground after heyerdahl shoved him. he pressed on it to feel the ache. he scratched at his chest before he peeled the bandages off his knuckles. they looked better than they did last night. he’d spread antiseptic on them before he left the motel. some of the cuts were closed, some were already scabbing up. “good job,” he mumbled. he turned the shower on, turning the knob all the way to the right and sticking his hand under the spray. freezing cold. it would take a minute or so for it to heat up, so he perched himself on the closed toilet to wait. he stared up at the ceiling and the air became thick with steam before long, and he got up and he got in the shower and he pressed himself against the wall once he was wet and he slid his hand down his front and buried his fingers between the lips of his cunt. he tipped his head back and sighed.

grady jerked off more often than he’d like to admit. every year with lee was a blessing, but they were still years - long and lonely stretches of time. he hooked up with guys, sure. sometimes if he could afford some time away from his objective while he was on the job he’d find the most welcoming bar he could, and find some guy to take care of him. but it’d been a long time since he’d been in a relationship. seven years.

harrison wasn’t good to him. sometimes grady forgave him - he was nineteen, too, and just as stupid. but more often than not grady told himself there was a difference between stupid and cruel, between stupid and ignorant, between stupid and violent.

grady came with a hand on his dick, with two fingers inside himself, under the scalding hot spray of the shower. he washed his hair and his body, stood there for a while watching his skin turn red under the hot water.

he left the bathroom in his plaid robe, his hair dripping down his face. lee was in the same spot she’d been. he left the room and saw her rabbit laying forgotten on the living room floor - she’d dropped it when he carried her in. he picked it up and took it to his bed and laid it beside her, a benign little sentry. he didn’t feel like making breakfast - didn’t know when she’d wake up, and he didn’t want to choose for her - so instead he pulled the door of his bedroom almost shut, cracked just enough, and went to their unimpressive stereo. it was an ugly all-in-one deal, big and unwieldy. rain dogs was sitting where he’d left it, half-open on top of the speaker. he turned the stereo on and took the cd out and put it inside, and he turned it down low so that it would just be a hum. he skipped ahead to track eight, and he sat in his chair beside it, and he closed his eyes and listened. sometimes he still felt like a kid, using music to cope, but in a lot of ways he was still a kid and he couldn’t shake the things that once made him feel safe in his skin, in the world.

it ended, and he reached out without looking and pressed the button so that it would play again. he did this again and again, closing his eyes and listening, until there was a small, heavy body setting itself in his lap.

“what’re we listening to?” lee said, voice a whisper.

“tom waits,” grady said.

“what’s he waiting for?”

“alright, smartass. that’s his name.”

“i know, dad.”

he turned the volume up, and wrapped an arm around her and held her against his chest.

“he sounds sad.”

“it’s a sad song, kid. i almost named you marie. you know that?”

“i don’t like it.”

“i decided i didn’t either.”

“i’m lee.”

“you _are_ lee,” grady said as he pressed the button again, one more time. “lee what?”

“lee shelby abramovitz.”

“who’s your dad?”

“you are!”

“what’s my name.”

“grady.”

“lee and grady.”

the song ended, and grady let the next one play. grady dressed, eventually, and they ate, eventually. she noticed his knuckles eventually and asked about them - “daddy was being stupid again,” he said, and she kicked her foot at him and told him he wasn’t stupid. he helped her with her math homework and they watched _cinderella_ together and ate dinner, and all day and all night grady thought of the pool of blood on the pink linoleum of theresa’s, thought of wes who didn’t ask questions, not one, except to ask after his daughter. he remembered wes touching his hand. lee slept in her own bed and grady slept in his, and he laid on his side and stared at the wall and found it very hard to fall asleep.

  
  


on the way back from dropping lee off at school, grady bought a newspaper at the gas station. he took it home and sat with it, skipping ahead to the classifieds. he skimmed them when miss lundqvist, fargo’s little blonde secretary, put him on hold.

“sorry about that,” she said eventually. “what’s your business, mr. numbers?”

“can you set up an appointment for me?” he said. “i wanna talk to mr. tripoli.”

“of course,” she said. “what time is best for you?”

*****

usually they only went to the diner for dessert. grady was, admittedly, not a baker, and lee was passionate about wes’s pies. but lee happened to bring home a math test with a little yellow ribbon on it and grady was so proud of her he picked her up and spun around the room with her, and she asked if they might go to the diner to eat dinner that night, as a treat, and he said yes. “let’s make it a fucking date,” he said, “put on one of your party dresses and i’ll wear a tie.”

lee picked out her silver dress, the one that grady got her for the winter recital last year. it’d been a little big then, but it fit her perfect now. “and a jacket, kid,” grady said as he tied his tie, “cold out.”

when they got there, grady opened her door for her and offered her his hand like a gentleman and she took it. he felt a little ridiculous, walking into a diner at seven in the evening wearing a nice shirt and a blazer and a tie, but he thought _fuck it._ peggy gasped when they walked in.

“what’s the occasion!” she said. “you look like a little princess!” and lee hid behind grady’s leg as best as she could.

“good test score,” grady said.

“congratulations!” peggy said. “anywhere you want.”

instead of lee’s favorite big corner booth, they sat at a much smaller one. grady thought that she might’ve felt exposed, sitting at the big one in her fancy outfit. she ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. grady ordered the soup of the day. “it looks like the sun,” she said, peering over at his bowl when nikki set it on the table.

“hot like the sun,” he said, watching the heat curl off of the top. he looked at nikki, who idled by their booth, waiting to see if they needed anything else. “who makes the food?”

“hm?” she said.

“who makes the food? i know wes, uh, makes the pies.”

“he makes some of it. there’s another cook back there.”

“he make either of ours?”

nikki smirked. “the sandwich,” she said, and she motored off to some other table.

they ate, listening to the sounds of the other patrons, their silverware scraping their plates, and the radio playing hits from the seventies and eighties. in the middle of the second triangular half of her sandwich, lee looked up and said “dad, this is the best grill cheese i’ve ever had.”

“hey, what’s with the hyperbole,” he said, “what about mine?”

she shrugged and continued eating.

“wes wanted me to say sorry there’s no coconut cream pie today,” nikki said when she reappeared to take their empty dishes. “he didn’t know you were comin’ in.”

“that’s fine,” grady said, “she’ll live.”

“want the menu? special pie today is pumpkin.”

“pumpkin. it’s barely october,” grady said.

nikki shrugged a shoulder. “s’his favorite pie. as soon as he sees a single orange leaf he’s makin’ them every week,” she said.

“pumpkin pie, kid?”

“okay,” lee said.

wes served them again. each slice of pie had a very generous dollop of smooth whipped cream on top. it reminded grady of the other night the way everything was, the clean pink linoleum, the chime of the bell as the patrons came and went. lee’s eyes lit up when she saw her slice, and she didn’t wait. she tucked in right as he set the plate down.

grady took a bite.

“shit,” grady said. nikki who was still standing by raised an eyebrow. “has he ever considered just selling whole pies? i would kill to have one of these at home to eat.”

nikki signed to wes, grady assuming she was passing his comment along. he signed back.

“he never considered it,” she said, and her mouth hung open like she was going to say something else, but someone on the other side of the tiny diner hollered her name and she motored away.

wes pulled up a chair from an empty table nearby, and he took out his notebook and grabbed his pen. lee kept eating, oblivious to the adults around her, happily kicking her legs back and forth. grady fed himself a forkful of whipped cream. wes slid the notebook over to grady, another sight and sound that took him back to that night.

 _if i sold you a whole pie, wouldn’t i have to wait for you to finish the thing before i see you again?_ it said.

grady looked up at him. wes raised his eyebrows, like he was challenging grady. they stared at each other, unmoving, until lee reached over and touched grady’s wrist. he looked at her and saw her plate was empty. wes stood, noisily dragging the chair back into its place and walking off.

*

grady parallel parked down the street from the restaurant. he’d dropped lee off at school two hours ago. it was raining then, and he’d watched her race in the front entrance in her shiny blue raincoat, and as he drove to fargo the clouds parted and the sun came out and the wet orange leaves shone. as he stepped out of the car he regretted dressing her in a sweater - it was fucking nice out.

he smoked a cigarette standing outside the restaurant for the five minutes he had to spare. he was nervous, jittery - he kept shifting, kept kicking his feet. he finished his cigarette too fast, and he walked down the block and entered.

“mr. numbers,” miss lundqvist said, smiling as he stepped up to her desk. “right on time!”

“punctuality,” he mumbled, “y’know.”

“you can go right up,” she said, a bright smile on her face.

so grady did. he took the elevator to the third floor, and he stepped off and he walked down the hall to mr. tripoli’s office.

“numbers,” tripoli said when he walked in the room.

“boss,” grady said.

tripoli gestured to the empty chair before his desk. he had a salad pushed off to the side, a black plastic fork stuck in a bit of spinach. grady sat on the edge of the seat, bouncing his leg.

“what’s this about,” tripoli said.

“boss,” grady said. he took a deep breath and licked his lips. “i wanted to meet with you because i want out.”

tripoli’s expression didn’t change. he set each elbow on each arm of his chair and he steepled his fingers.

“i don’t need to tell you what i’ve done for you, because i know you have a long memory,” grady said, “and you’ve done a lot for me. more than anyone has ever done for me. and i’m grateful.”

“don’t waste my time, boy,” tripoli said.

“i want out. i know you’ve let some go before. what did they have to do?” grady said. he was bouncing his leg hard and fast. his hands were trembling just so.

tripoli stared at him. “debt,” he said. “rest of your life. thousand a month to keep the dogs away.”

 _is it really that simple?_ grady thought.

“no consequences as long as you pay,” tripoli said. “miss one, done.”

“that’s all?” grady said.

“get out of here,” tripoli said. “talk to letters.”

grady did. he left tripoli’s office, his entire body shaking, and he went to the second floor, where the records and bookkeeping guys were stashed. letters’s job usually involved creating fake documents like ids and resumes and birth certificates, but he also doled out contracts and other such tedious paperwork. his office door was open when grady arrived, so he walked right in and sat down and told him that tripoli had sent him here, and what he was asking for.

“what?” letters said. “i haven’t heard of that.”

“well, he said it,” grady snapped. “talk to him about it if you don’t believe me.”

letters didn’t believe him, so he called tripoli’s office. grady glared at him the whole time he wagged his chin on the phone - “boss, we’ve never - no, i understand, but do you think that’s…? yes, sir, i know, _but_ … alright. i’m sorry sir. yes i’ll be at dinner. goodbye.”

grady felt smug, and he let it show on his face as letters set the phone back in its cradle and turned to look at him. “you’re a special case, mr. numbers,” he said. “i have to draft a contract. it’ll be ready by the next time you come in. get lost.”

“letters,” grady said as he stood. he tipped an imaginary cap at him. letters flipped him off.

when grady made it back to his car, he let out a long, shaky breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding in. what the fuck was happening. was it really that simple? to just ask to be let go and be let go? he thought of what letters had said - “i haven’t heard of that, you’re a special case.” tripoli had been good to him - saved him as much as he’d damned him. as much as he was the devil, he was also a savior. to grady, at least. nineteen years old, body broken, heart shattered, alone with the most perfect baby there ever was, a baby that was going to depend on him… 

grady let out a triumphant holler. it was fine. he was on his way to freedom.

*****

grady made it back home, eventually. school wasn’t out yet, so he stopped by the library before he went back to the apartment to take a nap or finally finish signing up for classes at the community college. he asked the librarian where he might find books about american sign language, and he left with two under his arm.


	3. chapter three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: homophobic slur, antisemitic slur.

they were grocery shopping when they ran into wes.

lee was riding on the back of the cart, her fists grabbing its sides, grady giving them a running start at the top of each aisle before he hopped on himself and they flew past pasta and tortillas and sauce and crackers. a little old man gave a hearty chuckle as they rolled down an aisle, and lee’s giggles seemed to bounce off the shelves. they were dicking around more so than shopping. their cart only had produce and a packet of sunflower seeds in it so far, and they’d gone down almost every aisle.

“alright, kid,” grady said. “one more time and then we have to get serious and do this fuckin’ shopping, alright?”

“okay!”

they turned down the next aisle - cleaning supplies and lightbulbs and shit like that. grady gave them a running start, then he jumped on. just as they were halfway through the aisle, there was wes on the other side, innocently going about his shopping with a basket on his arm, right in their path. “fuck,” grady said, and he pulled on the cart as his feet met the linoleum again and stopped just short of him.

wes looked thoroughly amused. grady was just a little embarrassed - he felt his cheeks get a little hot - but he ignored it. he was having fun with his kid, so what. lee waved at wes and he waved back. wes felt around for his pocket, glancing down and pulling his notebook from it when grady raised a hand.

_W-E-S,_ he slowly spelled.

wes’s eyebrows shot up. _you sign?_ he said, his hands a little slow. _thanks,_ grady thought.

_started,_ grady said. _not good._

_you’re good,_ wes said. there was this big, bright boyish smile on his face that was giving grady heart palpitations. heart palpitations? _i can help._

“daddy, what are you talking about?” lee said.

“how funny-looking you are,” grady said.

“hey!”

grady wracked his brain trying to think if he knew either of the signs he wanted. he didn’t so he spelled it out, painfully slow: _grocery shopping._

_i see,_ wes said. and he said something else that grady figured was a question, but he got lost halfway through. he figured he looked lost, too, because wes grabbed his notebook.

_mind if i tag along?_ it said.

_go ahead,_ grady wrote.

so the three of them shopped together. wes was only there for some lightbulbs and batteries and paper towels. lee skipped ahead of them, playing a truncated version of hopscotch with the multicolored linoleum, hopping from red to blue to yellow, avoiding the white speckled tiles. she never left their sight.

by the end, grady had a cart full of groceries - frosted flakes and produce, olive oil and cheddar cheese, bread and cloves of garlic and so on and so forth. wes said he’d walk them to the car, help them load it.

_you don’t have to,_ grady managed with his hands.

wes shook his head with a finality that had grady realizing he wouldn’t get another word in.

the three of them wandered over to where grady had parked - halfway across the lot, right near a cart corral. he popped the trunk and opened the backseat, let lee get situated in her little booster seat before he went to help wes load the groceries. by the time he was closing the door, there was only one bag left in the cart, and it was wes’s.

“aw, what the hell,” grady mumbled. _too… nice,_ he managed with his hands.

wes smirked. he signed something. grady almost had the gist of it, but he motioned for wes to sign it again. after the second time he had it pieced together - _when are you coming into the diner again?_

_don’t know,_ grady said. he motioned for wes’s notepad. _maybe sometime this week after dinner. going out is a treat for her so i try not to do it too much,_ he wrote.

wes nodded as he read. he took it back and wrote - _maybe i could bring you some pie, delivery on the house,_ he wrote. grady raised his eyebrows after reading. _i thought he didn’t sell whole pies,_ he thought.

they stood there awkwardly a moment looking at each other. grady was used to seeing wes in a plain black t-shirt dotted with flour with a white apron over top. standing there in the parking lot he was wearing a sleek black turtleneck and a suede fringe jacket, looking… like no one else grady had ever met. he looked good. handsome.

_how’s work?_ wes tried to say.

grady affected a frown and shook his head. wes dropped his hands immediately, letting them hang at his sides for a moment before he said sorry.

grady shook his head and grabbed the notepad back. _don’t mention it ever again,_ he wrote. he’d underlined _ever_ twice.

wes nodded.

grady handed him his notepad and he waved at him. _bye,_ he said. he closed the trunk and turned to walk around the front of the car but he heard a rustle of paper and fabric and wes had grabbed his wrist and tugged. grady turned back around.

wes was holding up his notepad. _would you like to go on a date sometime?_ it said. grady looked past the notepad after he finished reading, staring at wes. he looked hopeful. his hand on grady’s wrist burned.

  
  


“hey, bud,” grady said, glancing at lee in the rearview. she looked back at him right before he put his eyes back on the road. “how would you feel if dad went on a date?”

in the seven years since lee was born, grady had hooked up plenty of times, slaking his lust when he could no longer ignore his more primal desires, but he hadn’t dated at all. not since harrison. the hook ups were brief, shallow, ephemeral. he hadn’t really had a connection with another person even in general since then, either. the closest he came to friendship was the rapport he shared with lee’s teachers and the trust he’d placed in sweet little miss daisy.

harrison… that boy had ruined him. twenty-six and unwilling to admit to himself that he was terrified of being hurt like that again. of being abandoned. of being alone. grady squeezed the steering wheel in his fists.

“a date!” lee exclaimed, bringing grady out of the darkness of his thoughts. “have you ever even been on a date, daddy?”

“sure have!” grady said, even though he hadn’t really. when they were together he and harrison spent their days getting high and breaking shit. “your dad used to be a catch.” even though he hadn’t been. eighteen-years old, greasy as fuck and insecure to the point that he was charmed by the first asshole that gave him any attention.

“you’re still a catch, daddy,” she said. “you’re the handsomest!”

grady took a deep breath and focused on the car in front of him so that he wouldn’t start crying. “thanks, bug,” he said. “so, what do you think? dad going on a date.”

“what would i do?” she said.

“well, i’d take you to miss daisy’s. or maybe if it’s while you’re in school we won’t have to think about it.”

lee was quiet for a moment, like she was considering it. grady turned onto their street. “who asked you on a date, daddy?” she said.

grady licked his lips. “wes,” he said, “you know wes?”

“wes,” she said.

“wes, the big tall guy from the diner.” grady turned into the parking lot of their apartment complex.

“oh!” she said. “okay.”

they were both quiet while grady pulled into their spot.

“do you like him?” lee said.

grady sat there for a moment and thought about it. wes had been nothing but nice to them. he’d watched grady shoot a man and asked no questions except to make sure his daughter would be alright. and he was handsome as sin.

“i think so,” grady said. he unbuckled his seat belt and turned off the car. “come on, rat kid. all in one trip and i’ll let you have some candy.”

“hell yeah.”

“hell yeah.”

*****

“before you go,” carlyle said after handing grady his envelope with his assignment in it, “stop and see letters. he has something for you.”

grady tucked the envelope under his arm as he entered letters’s office. “got something for me?” he said.

letters grunted. “yeah,” he said, “your contract. here. boss wants you to read it _before_ you head out.” he handed grady a thick packet of paper, stapled in the corner.

“bit of a read,” grady said.

letters indicated the chair in the corner. “take a seat,” he said.

grady was anxious to get on the road. based on the brief, it was bound to be a three-day job after factoring in the travel. the faster he took off, the sooner he’d be back home with lee. but if this contract was all that stood between him and leaving this place for good, finding a normal job and never having to endanger himself to give his daughter a good life again, then he could spare ten minutes to sit down and read it. he took a breath.

the language was easy to follow. the bulk of the contract was about the thousand-dollar monthly payments. they were to be made on the fifth of every month, no sooner or later. the money would have to be tucked into unmarked dropboxes, the coordinates of which would be texted to grady on the last day of the previous month. the thousand dollars ensured grady’s safety - that no one in fargo would come after him after his termination. _your safety beyond what we can control, however, can never be guaranteed,_ grady read. _proceed with caution as if you still work for fargo._

grady read it through twice, and then he signed it.

“meant it when i said you were a special case, numbers,” letters said in a low voice. “boss has never had me write up anything like this before.”

grady hummed. “you don’t say,” he said nonchalantly.

“never,” letters said. he took the contract back. “in all my years here.”

“and you’ve been here… for forever, wasn’t it?”

“very funny,” letters said. “scram.”

grady didn’t know what to make of that factoid. _boss has never had me write up anything like this before…_

grady could be a little self-centered, but he was never conceited enough to think that moses tripoli had a soft spot for him. they first met when grady was twelve. he’d been alone, kicking a can through the park when some bigger, meaner kids from school had snuck up behind him and thrown him into the dirt. they’d kicked him, called him a stupid dyke and a hebe and, perhaps worst of all, they mocked him with his birth name. grady wanted to fight back, but they’d knocked the wind right out of him. the most he could do was bite, and so he did.

moses came out of nowhere. one moment, grady was getting ready to get beat within an inch of his life, and the next the heavy weight of his bully was just _gone._ grady’d managed to prop himself up on his elbow just enough to watch moses flashing his nasty-looking knife, his stance wide and offensive. the teenage brutes ran off, and grady was alone with him.

moses squatted beside him and repeated his birth name. grady couldn’t blame him for assuming.

“grady,” he said.

“grady,” moses repeated. his face was all bandaged. he looked like shit. “moses.”

moses taught him things. how to hunt, how to skin small game. how to fight. how to shoot. the things that he would never learn from his mother or his father. he never questioned grady’s presentation, and he always treated him the same. he wandered in and out of grady’s life, and every time, he looked a little different.

he offered grady a job when he was seventeen.

“a real one?” grady said. “not just deliveries?”

“real one,” moses said. “little more work. you’d be ready.”

grady said he had to think about it. a few months later, he was eighteen. a month after that, he met harrison. and a year after that, he took himself and his baby to up to the sprawling farmhouse outside fargo that moses used as headquarters back in those days, and he begged for help.

it was night by the time grady made it to the motel that’d been listed as a recommendation in the file. he had a dinner catered by the vending machine around the corner from his room, and he sat on the bed and he called miss daisy on the telephone, and she put lee right on.

“hi, daddy,” she said. the sound of her voice put a smile right on his face.

“hey, kid,” he said. “how was your day?”

“boring,” she said. “we had gym today. miss daisy made lasagna for dinner.”

“how was it?”

“so good, dad. i love lasagna…”

“i know, kid.”

“dad?”

“hm?”

“i love you… i miss you.”

“i love you too, kid. and i miss you so fuckin’ much. you know, daddy’s gonna get a new job soon. won’t be spending all this time away from you any more.”

“i know, dad.”

“i promise. it’s late. you should get some sleep.”

“okay, dad… i love you.”

“i love you, too. more than anything.”

“more than anything.”

it took grady a while to fall asleep, laying alone under the stiff covers of his borrowed bed.

  
  


johnny lamontagne was a pussy and a rat, but at least grady didn’t have to kill him. he stuffed him in the trunk of his car and drove him back to fargo. he’d tried to make a run for it, but he should’ve known better. there was no running from this kind of shit. _except for you,_ the voice in grady’s head whispered as he drove. _i’m not running. i made a deal,_ he retorted.

the instructions in the envelope had him driving a few miles outside of fargo and through winding back roads until he hit a discreet-looking cabin. there was another car there and grady knew it to be his colleagues’. he looked and saw them standing on the porch, the berserker and miss lady. they waved. he waved back.

“and this is where i leave you, lamontagne,” grady said as he opened the trunk and hauled johnny out with a firm grip on his arm. “good fucking luck.”

miss lady easily hoisted johnny onto her shoulder. she carried him into the cabin.

“headin’ out?” the berserker said.

“yeah,” grady said. “i’d stay and watch, but... “

“yeah, yeah,” the berserker said, waving a hand. “we do better without an audience anyway. don’t forget to text about the drop.”

“i won’t. thanks.”

grady made it back home with an hour or so to spare before school let out. he stopped off at the diner. he left his car running while he got out and stepped inside the place. peggy greeted him and he nodded at her.

“um, nikki?” he called as she passed. she stopped and looked at him, two plates balanced in one hand, a full jug of steaming coffee in the other. “can you - i just need to talk to wes for a moment.”

she nodded.

grady leaned against his car as he waited. shit, it was getting cold. he hoped lee was well-dressed. wes appeared, then, and not for the first time grady noticed how handsome he was. for the first time, though, grady realized that wes was probably thinking the same about him, and that made his heart squeeze.

wes handed him his notepad. _be quick, got a pie in the oven,_ it said.

grady scribbled. _i want to go on a date with you,_ he wrote. he handed it back to wes and watched him read. he looked up at grady and the smile on his face -

he turned to a new page in the notepad. he wrote, then he tore the page out and handed it to grady. he pocketed his notepad and shoved the pencil behind his ear and then he waved and grady waved and he went back to his pie. grady stood there in the parking lot with his heart hammering for a minute before he peeked at what wes had given him.

it was a phone number. beneath it was _text me when you’re free._

*****

“numbers,” grady said as he answered the phone.

“numbers,” miss lundqvist said back. “good afternoon! just a quick memo from mr. tripoli and then i’ll let you go.”

“okay.”

“he just wanted me to let you know that your next assignment will be your last. okay? okay.”

“okay. thanks.”

and the line went dead.

  
  


grady pressed his face into his pillow and he screamed. he’d done this many times in his life, usually out of frustration or rage or anguish. this time, though, he was rejoicing. in his own way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year!


End file.
